


Better Than Us

by Robertdoc



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Post-Finale, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26186107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robertdoc/pseuds/Robertdoc
Summary: The morning after escaping the Emperor was already hard enough for Luz, between the nightmares and having the source of most of them now living in the only home she has left. Then she finally remembers Amity - and finds the courage to speak to Lilith again, if only to tell her why she should be the one that tells Amity everything.Everything everyone forgot to tell her yesterday. And everything Luz realizes she was in no condition to tell her yesterday if she did. But when Amity finally comes to see her, their talk goes much differently - and with much less anger - than it likely would have before.And with much more reassurance that their bond will never turn out like their mentors did.Spoilers for finale.
Relationships: Amity Blight & Lilith Clawthorne, Amity Blight & Luz Noceda, Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, Eda Clawthorne & Lilith Clawthorne, Lilith Clawthorne & Luz Noceda
Comments: 13
Kudos: 406





	Better Than Us

Luz had been woken up by screams before. By the Hexside school bell when she dozed off in class or lunch. By her mom’s when she stubbed her toe or couldn’t get her dozens of morning tasks done in time before getting her up.

This was the first morning, and the first time period, when the screams that woke Luz up were her own.

When she remembered the events of just a day ago, and how the worst of them reappeared in her dreams, she knew it wouldn’t be the last.

She knew it for certain when she got herself out of bed, only to see the source of so many of those nightmarish events in the Owl House living room. Sitting with the person she gave 20 years of nightmares to, as if she hadn’t.

Luz was awake enough to remember this source was a big reason why they were all back. Why Eda was back. Why she was halfway to her old complete self again.

And she was awake enough to remember why the missing half was gone. What she did that led to its destruction, and why. Why Luz was almost gone too.

Why she might be gone forever from…

Yesterday, Luz was more than ready to face such a demon. Because she couldn’t take a single second to talk herself out of it. Because she had no right to. Because she told herself over and over…at least until owl Eda talked to her, anyway…and yet that was still only a day ago.

Yesterday Luz couldn’t be powered by anything but adrenaline, fury, guilt and love. Couldn’t let any memories, or any unnecessary thoughts about that drawbridge, get to her. And she couldn’t let any memories of what she gave up next get to her right after she left.

But that was yesterday. Today there were no such distractions. Today, and perhaps for the foreseeable future, the biggest possible reminder of yesterday was staying in her home. The only home Luz had left for the foreseeable future.

Yesterday she could face it in reality. Today she knew she couldn’t, in reality or any other world.

Yet like yesterday, she quickly realized none of it mattered. Once she remembered someone who had 10,000 more reasons to despise Lilith didn’t anymore – or at least was trying not to – Luz knew her own much smaller reasons to hold onto hate and fear of her didn’t matter.

Or at least they couldn’t get in the way. Not today, anyway. Not until she was completely ready to bury it, like she buried everything else yesterday that…didn’t matter in the bigger picture.

So Luz would keep her distance until then. For reasons she could make sound braver in her head than out loud right now. By the time it all evened out, it wouldn’t be important and she could go on doing…what needed to be done as if nothing else mattered.

Because it didn’t. Not compared to other things and other people.

Luz knew she could face being around Lilith while they had far more important things to do. Or when her complete story was fresh in her mind. Or when she was too busy with Eda to pay her any mind.

Without any of that, though…it was best to avoid her until she came back into Luz’s nightmares. Until everything else did. But Luz could outrun it all and not make anything more difficult for the living – for those who were more ready to put everything behind them when they weren’t at wand point – until then.

That was surely the best plan.

Since there was no need to stop and think of another – especially since stopping and thinking were the whole thing she needed to avoid – it was fool proof. Even Luz proof.

**Hours later**

Amity had been woken up by her itchy cast, and other cast-related uncomfortableness, every day for a while now. This morning, it turned out to be the least of what bothered her when she woke up.

At least it was when she remembered what bothered her yesterday. Both in what she saw and what she didn’t know.

What she saw was Willow and Gus turning a whole crowd against the Emperor live on her crystal ball, on behalf of Luz’s imprisoned mentor. What the cameras didn’t show Amity – what no one else had bothered to use anything else to tell her – was everything that happened before and after that.

Or what became of everyone involved. Willow and Gus certainly hadn’t bothered to explain themselves to her, in person or on a scroll. Neither had…

Assuming they could. Assuming she could. If they couldn’t…but then again, if they could and chose not to…

But it wasn’t like Amity was reaching out to them. It wasn’t like the cast was her entire excuse either. Whether the bigger one was because she didn’t want to be the one to reach out first, or didn’t want her – them – to see how much she thought and worried about them when they weren’t thinking about her…

That would have been enough if it wasn’t just them keeping Amity in the dark. With something this big involving the Emperor and the Coven, Amity thought she would have overheard something about it from her parents. From Lilith.

Instead, Amity remained stuck in this bed and in the dark. Unable to walk out and find out anything herself. Unwilling to use any other resources to contact them and find out.

Either unable or unwilling to think about what their answers could possibly be. Or what it might say that they were so reluctant to give them.

Or what it said that it took seeing Willow and Gus on her ball for Amity to worry so much about it. Even well after she heard about who would be petrified, and knew who it would affect the most. What it said that Amity was so effective at blocking that out until then.

Maybe her efforts to block out…other Luz-related thoughts was starting to work far too well. But all she had were maybes, not answers. By her own doing and others as well.

Stupid Boscha. Stupid Grudgeby. Stupid cast. Stupid leg. Stupid early benefits of getting hurt that seemed much more inconvenient now. Stupid…stupid…

“Amity?”

That didn’t sound like Amity’s regular scolding inner voice. It sounded more like a voice that scolded her on the outside too. And sometimes sounded like her inner voice afterwards. Yet now it was coming from…

Her own room? Along with the rest of her?

“Lilith?” Amity avoided falling off the bed in shock, if only because of her cast. But her cast also couldn’t be the reason why she forgot her proper place. “I mean, Ms Clawthorne?” she remembered.

“You don’t need to call me that anymore. If you still don’t know why…then it’s a good thing I’m here after all. Your parents aren’t here, so the Emperor must be updating them now. Since it’s harder sneaking into houses without magic than I thought, that makes it a relief. It also means I might have less time than I hope.”

“What?” Amity asked, encompassing all of it at once, since there were too many individual parts to be confused about. Especially that part where she said ‘without magic’ “What’s going on?”

“All right, I might as well say it all now. Before anyone else shows up and…before I lose my nerve. Please don’t say anything, no matter how much you might want to, until I’m done telling the whole story.”

Please. Of all the words she used, none were more confusing or illuminating to Amity than that one. Because she’d never heard her mentor say it to her before. She could count the number of times her parents did on one hand.

This rare, bare minimum amount of courtesy was enough to make Amity both silent and a little worried.

Yet there was no way she could have imagined how difficult Ms. Clawthorne’s request would be. Not even when she started it with a story about how she cursed her own sister.

Not even when she revealed how pointless it turned out to be. Or how she clawed her way to the top of the Emperor’s Coven not for the Emperor’s sake, but for the chance to catch her sister and cure her.

Or even when she told Amity the Emperor’s promises of a cure were a lie. Perhaps not even the only lie he told her or the entire Isles.

By that point in the story, Amity was only halfway listening. The other half of her was still replaying the part of the story about the drawbridge.

About the near-murder on the drawbridge.

Yet even after that, the near-murderer still wasn’t finished talking.

“They’re probably finalizing the cover story about why I’ve been removed from the Coven. Once they do, I’ll have to stay hidden like my sister. If not…with my sister. We haven’t worked out that much yet. Either way…I won’t be running the Coven anymore. Or teaching you anymore. Not officially, anyway. I guess I made sure of that.”

“After you tried to kill Luz. Then you shattered her life here. And _ended_ her life there.”

Ms. Clawthorne – Lilith – _she_ barely heard Amity. Amity could barely hear herself too. Both from the simmering tone of her voice and the much louder voices inside her head.

Screaming much louder than she could muster out loud – yet – about how the last things she’d made herself believe for years about the world, and her destined place in it, that hadn’t been shattered yet these last few months…were the biggest lies of all.

“I didn’t end it! Not at the end! But everything before that…” Lilith trailed off. “See, this is why I didn’t want you to say anything until I explained! Maybe if Edalyn had just let me explain at the drawbridge first, then…”

“Why should I let you?” Amity choked out.

“Because you needed to hear it directly from me! Before they sold their lies about it to you!”

“Why do you care? If you didn’t care about your sister, or about…then why do you care what I think?!”

“Why do you think?! Because Luz reminded me!”

That shut every voice Amity had up. Right before they would have asked – and said the worst answers about – why Luz didn’t tell her any of this.

Then told her exactly why she wouldn’t have trusted her enough to.

“Now then…if you’ll let me finish.”

**Hours earlier**

Lilith knew exactly why the human scattered away from her at first sight this morning. Now that Edalyn’s life no longer hinged on them having to look at each other.

Truthfully, so many other things were hard enough to face this morning without facing her. So it was for the best that the human took one less face out of the equation.

Yet once the first morning of her new life and the first round of discussions about it were over, Lilith had nothing to do. Nothing to distract her from those other things.

So when she looked out the front window of Edalyn’s house, and saw the human with those other two miscreant friends of her’s, she figured a quick look would kill about a minute of time. After all, those other two weren’t around when those other things happened, so it should be fine.

The human’s eyes widened the more the other two talked, then her mouth went up wide open in a way that made her look more unnatural than usual. It wasn’t uncommon for her, as Lilith understood the more she remembered the few times she saw the human before yesterday. It certainly was by every other normal standard, though.

But now Lilith supposed she couldn’t see that in a bad way anymore. Not out loud for right now.

In that context, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to think when she saw the human’s face suddenly freeze up. Or saw the other two’s faces freeze in an eerily similar fashion.

The human’s mouth moved first. It seemed to utter three syllables. Whatever they were, they made her nearly crumble apart. Not as much as she did at various parts yesterday. Or maybe it was, but just in a different way. One Lilith wasn’t nearly well trained enough – in every single way now – to understand.

That settled it. The minute of distraction had been more than filled. Now time to find another one.

Lilith was about two minutes into that search when the human came back inside and found her first. Then marched up to her in a way she didn’t seem remotely capable of mere hours ago.

Was this some human trick? Now that she had more power than anyone in this house, it might actually be worth asking. Yet she didn’t give Lilith the chance.

“I need to talk to you. Right now.”

So Lilith followed the human up to Edalyn’s attic. Or whatever the human had apparently turned it into. But this last-second attempt to stall her mind with inconsequential distractions would fail too.

It failed when the human…when Luz…faced her with a look halfway similar to the ones during their fight. Full of anger, barely held back tears…and yet something a little softer this time. More vulnerable. More scared.

All things Lilith preached as weaknesses for so many years, to so many witches. Yet facing them now, from this human, made Lilith feel like the weak one here. Maybe it would have been that way if she still had magic too. Which filled her with even more dread for whatever was to come.

“You almost killed me. You did so much worse to Eda. You helped a tyrant do worse to lots of other people. You might as well have told me to go back to my own country. Because of what you started, I don’t know when I’ll ever see my mami again. I don’t know when I’ll ever sleep at night again!”

So far, it was about what Lilith expected. If harsher in tone than what she could endure. But then the human’s next tone and her words surprised her.

“But I just remembered how I’ll eventually forgive you. Because I already know how. I already learned how, right here.”

Lilith kept quiet, since she was still without words and without much standing to use them if she did. Yet for once, the human – Luz – was seeming to choose and sort her words more carefully.

“Someone already taught me that people, witches, anyone can make the biggest mistakes. That they can hurt someone they love with all their heart, in a blink of an eye, without ever thinking they were capable of it. That they can feel so ashamed, they make themselves crueler and crueler even though deep down, that’s never what they wanted to be. Even though all they want, no matter what they tell themselves, is to have that loved one back. And to be the person that loved them again.”

“Someone already taught me they can be that person again. That even the worst things done to the most pure, wonderful people who deserved so much more for so long…they can be undone. Fixed not just with magic, but with things inside that are far more powerful. Even if they’ve been buried for far too many years.”

“Someone already taught me how much better someone can become. Once they’re allowed to finally be who they used to be…who they never wanted to stop being, again. And if I’ve seen it once, I know I can see it again. Because she showed me first.”

“Edalyn?” Lilith became confident enough to speak, warming herself up with an easy answer. But once again, Luz leveled her by proving just how little she really knew.

“No. Her name is Amity.”

Amity.

 _Oh._ Amity…

“You forgot about her?” Luz echoed Lilith’s sudden inner realization. “Well, that I can’t blame you for. Because I did too. We all did. Until a few minutes ago, I didn’t think for a second what all this would eventually do to her.”

“I admit, I gave you far bigger things to think about,” Lilith tried not to phrase as a defense.

“You’re right. I was too caught up to think about her. I couldn’t think to let anyone but King help me save Eda. I didn’t even know how much Willow and Gus helped anyway until a while ago. I only remembered Amity then, and then…”

Luz’s momentum and words stalled. Yet it was only for a moment, only she didn’t look nearly as confident, angry or well when she picked back up again.

“If I’d thought about her, I still wouldn’t have wanted her help. I probably wouldn’t have told her what happened, either. Because if I did, I don’t know if she’d have believed me. Not after everything you, the Coven and her parents brainwashed into her. And if she defended you to me 24 hours ago…who knows what I would have said to her.”

“So you’re glad you forgot about her?” Lilith tried to guess again, only to fall painfully short again.

“I’m scared. Because now I know what my next nightmare’s gonna be. Me and Amity in place of Eda and you all those years ago. Only this time, we’re actually dueling to get in the Coven.”

“I’ll just want to get in to stop whatever Belos has planned for my world. But she’ll still want in because you and they told her it was her only purpose. So much so that she’ll try to stop me, even after I tell her all about you and him…and then she won’t need a curse to beat me. Even if she has one ready.”

Lilith stopped herself from guessing Luz was too afraid of Amity to tell her everything. Or that she was too mad at Lilith for making sure Amity wouldn’t believe her. Or anything else Luz would probably prove wrong a minute later.

So she tried to continue doing something she was badly out of practice at. Listening.

“Maybe that story would have started early if I talked to her yesterday. Maybe there’s no stopping it. But…it’s not up to me. It shouldn’t be about me at all.”

“Then what is this about?” Lilith figured a relatively neutral question like that would be okay. Yet when Luz leveled her hard glare at her again – albeit one filled with something resembling hope, mixed in with the anger – she knew it wouldn’t be that easy for her.

“Do you want to be worthy of Eda again? Do you really want to be someone capable of being her sister again?”

Lilith should have said yes with words. If she really could be that person Luz was talking about, she should have said so with words. And yet she was so far away from it, so emotional and…everything else she told herself she couldn’t be for so many years…all she was capable of at this below minimum starting point was a nod.

Yet Luz’s unblinking, uncompromising, challenging glare didn’t waver.

“Then here’s how you start proving it to Eda. To me. And to you. By telling Amity _everything_.”

“Me?!” Lilith sensed this wasn’t the right answer or tone, yet she dug herself in deeper regardless. “I thought this was building up to you doing it! Then I’d confirm it later!”

“She deserves to hear the truth from you first. About yesterday and everything else. Before the Emperor or her parents give her more lies instead. You couldn’t give anything else to Eda, but there’s still time to do better for Amity.”

“And if there isn’t?”

“Then that would be on me. Maybe that means it should be me who tells her. But…”

“You’re scared she’d still take my side?”

“All I know is, if I told her yesterday and she did…we’d end up never wanting to speak to each other again. I don’t know what she thinks now, but no matter what…she should hear the full truth from someone. And you owe it to her even more than I do.”

“Even if she only hates me, it doesn’t mean she’ll turn on the Emperor. Or the Coven. For a second, I thought I could reform it from the inside. If she thinks so too, and if the Emperor feeds her the kind of lies he fed me…even if she knows the truth, your nightmare could still come true. History could repeat itself no matter what any of us do.”

Lilith really didn’t know how to stop herself. That was one thing her old self and new self both still had in common. If there was a new self – and Lilith probably hadn’t made it look like there was since she came up here.

One more time, Luz startled her by carrying on unfazed. Or at least not fazed because of anything she did. Not anything present day Lilith did.

“That’s not important. However it ends, I want her to have what you never gave Eda. The whole truth. And I want her to have what you and everyone else never gave Amity before. A real choice. If she knows everything, believe everything and _then_ still doesn’t…react the way I hope she will…I can live with that. As long as it’s her own choice. From her own free will. And not because she was lied to or because she was a coward.”

“At least in that way, she will never turn out like you. And we’ll never turn out like you and Eda. Not in…the exact same way. If it turns out the same the other ways…I’ll hate it more than anything. But if it’s Amity’s fully informed choice that no one forced on her, not even me…like I would have tried to yesterday if I remembered she existed…that’s what matters more to me.”

“And if you are still who Eda grew up with, it should matter to you too. If you want to show her you’re still that Lilith…maybe doing better by Amity first will be a good warm up. At least I think so.”

Luz thought so. Knowing her, she wouldn’t keep her thoughts to herself for long. Soon she would say so to Edalyn, and by then…

Maybe it would be best to prove herself by starting small. Going as big as she did last night only seemed to work so much, so maybe grand gestures weren’t as important now. Start by helping someone other than Edalyn and Luz, then work her way back up until everything else was better.

Yet even with that clearer path, Lilith still couldn’t help herself. Still couldn’t stop herself from poking vulnerable holes.

“I think it’s interesting you couldn’t face me this morning. Yet when it came to my star pupil, you took a far different tone.” Lilith glossed over the fact she soon wouldn’t be her pupil anymore – at least officially for now – just to get a calculated rise out of someone for old times sake.

But when Luz went right back to glaring at her, far harder this time, she was reminded once more the old times were over.

“She’s not just a star pupil. If you couldn’t see that while you had the chance, you missed out on more than I thought,” Luz concluded but didn’t finish with. “If there is a part of you that knows better, you know why you have to do this. Give her the truth and freedom to decide who she wants to be. Not just the next you, or the next Eda.”

“And then…”

“Then we get to live with our own choices. Maybe together, if we’re lucky. A lot of people deserve so much more luck than they got. I’d like to start believing you do too.”

Lilith had no dig or genuine answer to that. Luz seemed to have finally run out of speeches herself. So Lilith started making her way out, without a verbal confirmation she would reach out to Amity. She trusted it was implied and that it was enough to satisfy the human.

Lilith trusted she was satisfied. All the way up until when she nearly finished closing the attic door, and saw Luz’s posture and entire body crumble the second she thought Lilith was gone.

Lilith saw all traces of the girl’s bravery, defiance and ability to confront her near-murderer collapse, once she didn’t have to maintain the act anymore. She saw the girl struggle to push the return of her fear and trauma back deep down, where she’d kept it as long as she needed to.

All to force herself to face Lilith. To make her do something good for someone who wasn’t Edalyn or connected to Edalyn, for once. To make her do it for Amity.

Amity, whom Lilith molded into someone who wouldn’t have the doubt, connections or vulnerabilities that nearly crippled her. Amity, whose molding broke apart nearly the second after Luz came. If not the second after Lilith tried to turn her into a cheater.

Amity, who because of Lilith’s teachings – and other influences Lilith chose to ignore – wanted nothing more than to be the top servant of…him. To push aside anything that would get in the way. To sacrifice anything and anyone in that way.

Maybe even if the person closest to her was in that way.

Oh.

Well, hex it all. This whole ‘making up for 20 years of atrocities’ thing just had to be harder than it looked. And just had to include making amends to more than two people.

But it had to be done.

Lilith supposed it would be bad form to turn down someone who held off a panic attack on behalf of a friend. Who also endured that…other stuff on behalf of…other people.

And Lilith supposed she couldn’t be vague to herself about any of it anymore. Not when she’d have to spell it all out, in great detail, for someone else soon enough.

But if a human could do it…albeit a human now stronger than she was. Perhaps not just recently.

And perhaps it wasn’t just her who was.

**Hours later**

“I’d like you to leave now.”

Amity was using every bit of strength she had to say those words, and those words alone. To say it in that low tone of voice, and that tone alone. To keep on this still face and this face alone.

Which would crumble the more it had to look at her. Yet she didn’t take it away.

“Just know this. Luz wasn’t afraid you’d side with me if she told you. No matter what she told me or wanted me to tell you. She was afraid of losing, or almost losing, one more thing that meant our whole world to her. Too afraid to think straight enough to know it wouldn’t happen.”

“And when you can’t think straight enough to just talk to someone, and trust they’ll understand you and want to help you, no matter how impossible you think that might be…that’s when something far worse happens. That’s when you end up like me.”

“If that’s the last thing you ever let yourself learn from me…I think I can live with that.” With that, Lilith knew it was time to walk away.

Which was more than Amity could still do.

She could only sit, with her thoughts and her former mentor’s cursed, horrible, true words, all alone. Until her parents returned and told her their version of why Lilith was no longer her mentor, or anyone to look up to. Whether or not any of their words were their own.

Through it, Amity could only sit and realize how different this would all sound to her without Lilith’s visit. Without Lilith to tell her different – tell her correctly. Without her doing what may have been only the second noble thing in her life in 20 years.

Both of which wouldn’t have happened – on top of everything else that never would have happened – without Luz.

With that, Amity was done sitting around. If she had been done with it 24 or 48 hours ago…who knows how much could be better or so much worse.

So once her parents told her she’d have a new mentor very soon, she did a good enough job of convincing them she had to be fully healthy before she met her. Once they gave her enough potions to allow her cast to come off – leaving aside why they didn’t just do that in the first place, or why Amity didn’t insist on it so she could make that cursed trip – Amity ran off.

She insisted she needed to test her legs before she could walk around with her new mentor. She supposed it wasn’t just her parents she’d need to fool with lies like that for a while.

But for now, all that mattered was fooling them long enough to reach her old mentor’s new home.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Luz was woken up by her own screams again. This time, it was after she was done screaming at the sight of Amity after she cursed her, in a scene on a field that looked two decades old.

At least this time when she got out of bed, she could stand to see Lilith with Eda. She could stand the company and stand to stay inside with her, as she ate her breakfast and got a jump on her studies – well, her and Eda’s studies now.

This time, she wasn’t in her own head as much when she heard there was a visitor for her. Once Luz, Willow and Gus all realized they forgot about Amity yesterday, and Luz insisted Willow and Gus not reach out to her until she got Lilith to do it, they probably wanted to make sure she did.

Luz knew they were guilty and worried about Amity too. Still, there needed to be an order to who finally checked in on her. Of course, that didn’t mean Luz had dibs on being the first one after Lilith. For a number of reasons.

Yet when Luz got to the front door, she realized she’d been shoved to the front of the line anyway.

If this was anything like yesterday, the sight of Amity in real life soon after seeing Amity in Luz’s nightmares would have made her run. It would have made her do anything except face her and everything she represented in either realm.

Yet today, she couldn’t take her eyes off the subject of her nightmare. Of her dream.

Neither could she move, even when Amity approached her and asked if they could talk. Or when she was the one to take her hand first for once. Hooty could have screeched his lungs out in this moment and Luz wouldn’t have flinched an inch.

She only started moving when Amity led her outside. She only noticed Amity had her cast off and could walk again when she led her outside. She only started to realize she needed to talk – needed to tell her so many things – when she led her outside.

But by then, Amity had already started the talking.

“I know what you did. Sending Lilith. I know how hard that was for you. And I understand…how hard it would have been for both of us if you told me first. Yesterday or…before. So thank you.”

“Of course…” was all Luz could think to say that would mean anything.

“You’re right about other things too. And wrong about one big thing.”

“I’m sorry?” Luz asked, fearing already she’d be saying this again and again later. Only not in the form of a question.

“You’re right. Everything I wanted or told myself I wanted my whole life…I don’t know how to feel about it now. I don’t know how I’d react if I knew a little earlier, and I don’t know how I’d take it out on you. Or you on me. I don’t know if we’re on the same page on everything now, and I don’t know what’ll happen if we’re not later.”

“Now what you’re wrong about…is that I don’t want your help figuring it out.”

Luz went back into freeze mode, until she sputtered, “I…I don’t think I said it like that. If that’s how Lilith phrased it…I, I just don’t want to tell you what to think like everyone else. I’ve shattered everything else in your life already…your social life, your uncaring act, your leg and now your mentor…”

“And I needed all that shattered! Heck, even my leg if you think about it!”

“Maybe later,” Luz lied through her teeth, which Amity promptly waved off.

“The point is, we’re not gonna be like Eda and Lilith! Her first instinct was to curse someone far more clever, kind and able to think for herself, instead of talking to her! Instead of having too much pride and too much faith in what she was ‘supposed to be’ to find another way, with someone who’d do anything for her! Even talk to someone unforgivable for her!”

Amity knew she mixed up the duos at the end, but she had more important things to do than correct herself. And Luz was too spellbound to ask for a correction.

“Luz, I know you’re scared. For me, you, us, everyone. I can’t imagine exactly what you’re going through. But I can imagine what it takes to put that much weight on your shoulders. No matter how much you think you have no choice. Or that you can’t…or shouldn’t, try to take it off.”

Luz had discovered another big difference from yesterday. She could face Lilith without buckling once until she left. But in facing Amity, right here and right now, it was starting to feel like a long shot.

“I can’t say for sure what’ll happen. But what I do know is I don’t want to find out without you helping me. Or talking to me. Or trying to get through to me. Even if you have to do it yourself. Even if we wind up saying…” now Amity needed a second to get her nerve back up. And to prepare herself to live up to her own example.

“Take this, okay? The idea you might have to stay here forever…it didn’t sound so bad to me as it did to you.” Luz didn’t yell at or slap her yet, so that was a good omen.

“I mean, you were so afraid of what your Mom would think at Grom! Avoiding that forever might not be the worst thing!” Still no slaps and the worst was already over, so crisis seemingly averted.

“But then my mom told me the Emperor’s lies about Lilith and Eda. Without an ounce of guilt. If you really have a mom who wouldn’t do that to you…it might not be the worst thing to get you back to her. Leaving everything else aside,” Amity only briefly tripped up before she could reveal ‘everything else’ in that everything else.

“It won’t always be so easy to remember that. Or remember the dreams I’ve had my whole life were garbage the whole time. Maybe I’ll wish I was still in the garbage sometimes, maybe you’ll resent me for that, I don’t know! Maybe we’ll fight like you thought and maybe we won’t always be on the same side of this thing!”

“But I don’t ever want to stop trying to be! I don’t want to give up until we almost destroy each other, like they did! And I don’t want to give up on you! Especially when you’d never give up on me! When you remember me, anyway!” Amity tried her best to be jokey at the end, but it didn’t come naturally to her at the best of times. Which these were not.

Being this sappy and reassuring didn’t come naturally at the best times either. Yet Amity pushed through what she wasn’t familiar with. Which she would have surely to do a bunch more times in the weeks and months ahead. Because it was worth it. Because she needed her.

Luz needed to know – not just show someone else – it was still okay to be someone she told herself she couldn’t be anymore. Someone other than a brave, incredible hero who held herself together only by pushing aside everything that would break a normal person. That would even break someone extraordinary.

Someone who didn’t feel like they could break down in front of anybody.

“I don’t know if you think you have to look okay for Eda, or Willow and Gus, or even her. You don’t have to do that for…everybody,” Amity barely covered up, until she realized how useless it was.

“Please don’t feel like you have to hide what you’re feeling around me again.” Amity realized how hypocritical that was from her on a few levels, but they would be dealt with later. Maybe.

None of that, or anything else, meant anything when Luz finally brought herself to speak. Barely.

“I’m not okay, Amity…” she confessed. “But if I’m not, how can I do…all this? How can I teach Eda now? How can I get through Lilith being here? How can I be ready for whatever the Emperor’s gonna do to my world?”

“You weren’t okay when you went back for Eda, and look what you did,” Amity tried and likely failed to be encouraging.

“That was when I had to save her! When I was convinced it was all my fault! Now that it’s over for now and she’s back and not the same and I have time to think…oh, I’m just glad Grom happened before I knew what real fears were!”

Amity needed a second to push all Grom thoughts aside, which was faster than usual. It also gave Luz time to reflect on much more important things.

“I was so afraid of her finding this place. Now I’m so scared I’ll never get to tell her about it. I’ll never get to try and make her see how much being here means to me….how much Eda means to me, how much Willow and Gus…and _you_ …” Luz said with a not unnoticed crack in her voice at the very end.

“Amity, what if I never see her again? What if I’m not strong enough to keep going?”

“Then you let everyone else who…cares about you help you, and we’ll know for sure.”

It took Amity longer than it should have to see she could feel safe around Luz. She could show parts of her she’d never dare to show anyone else, and it would be okay. She could show Luz the Amity she hid from the rest of the world, and it’d be okay. Luz could encourage her to show the rest of the world at her own pace, and it’d be okay.

It took until now for Amity to see she was capable of doing the same for her.

It shouldn’t have taken Luz crying days worth of tears, guilt, anger, fear, and everything else she made herself push down for everyone else’s sake. Everything she had to push down to be the amazing hero who stood up to the greatest wizard of all time and held him to a draw.

Everything she didn’t think she could let herself show to Eda, or Lilith, or Willow and Gus, or anyone else she didn’t think needed to be bothered by her. Everything she didn’t feel safe enough to let herself feel after the most harrowing, awful period of her life.

Everything she thought would knock her down for good if she let herself feel it.

Until Amity gave her arms to hold her up. A soothing voice to drown out some of her cries. An otherwise silent promise that she could handle it, she wasn’t going anywhere, and that nothing she felt was too much or too inconvenient for her to handle.

Everything she probably couldn’t have given her 48 hours ago. But all that really mattered was she could now.

And that they both knew for sure she would never stop trying to do it again and again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When Luz was finally cried out, Amity took her through the woods for the rest of the afternoon. Gave her the first quiet and peaceful outing they’d ever spent together. Made her feel far less afraid about the peace, quiet and anything else that might help her stop and think.

Especially when they laid down underneath their Grom tree.

By the time they woke up and headed back to the Owl House hand in hand, Amity barely realized what she’d done. Not just in giving Luz her first peaceful moments in days, but in the fact she held her hand, led her through a slew of traditionally quiet Amity activities, and sat next to her without blushing or losing her powers of speech once.

There would be time to reflect on that accomplishment, and how it was the furthest thing from a sign of her feelings fading away, later. Maybe. The other accomplishments were more important in the short term anyway.

Accomplishments both Eda and Lilith could see the minute Luz came back home, with the kind of smile and peace on her face they hadn’t seen since before the castle. When they saw who was attached to her, and saw the both of them when Luz hugged her goodbye, it filled in whatever blanks were left.

Eda made herself hold back any extra commentary until Luz returned inside. Before Lilith could follow her, though, Amity did what she thought she could never do again 24 hours ago. Try to talk to her.

“Luz will forgive you. Someday. Because she’s not like us,” Amity declared. “She’s not someone who’d throw away the most important person in her life, just because she was scared she’d be worthless if she didn’t. She’s not someone who’ll ever have to know how far that kind of shame can make you fall. But we both know better.”

Just as Lilith started to feel something other than shame in front of her again, Amity added, “But we both also know the difference between someone threatened into that shame…and someone who brought it all on herself. Maybe it’s not all that clear at first, to someone too young and scared to know any better then. But it is now.”

It was clear indeed. Far later than it should have been, but there it was. Only some figured it out a little sooner, and with much more time to spare, than others.

“But that won’t matter to Luz forever. She’ll forgive you, and when she does, she’ll insist I do it too.”

To that, Amity turned around and started walking, only stopping briefly to look back at her. The look seemed to be uncaring, filled with little but contempt. But then there was that little.

That little spark of something more, something hidden, something wild…something that might have made them both so much better off, if Lilith had found it and encouraged it long before now.

Now seeing it mostly brought regret. Yet the rest of it brought the oddest bit of hope. Along with Amity’s final words.

“By then I hope I can.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When Lilith finally returned inside, she felt something rare when she saw Edalyn. A certainty of what she wanted to say to her.

“There is one good thing that came from all this. The fact we know they’ll be better than us. That they already are better than us. Not just in magic now. At least they’ll never let themselves stop being friends.”

Eda did something rare on her own part. Hold back a mocking laugh at her sister.

Because now she knew something new. Whether Lilith was good or bad, one thing would never change about her. Her ability to be completely and obliviously wrong.

At least now it was just about those two always staying ‘friends.’ At least now she had a reason to hope Luz was faster to see the real truth than Lilith was.

She got another reason to hope the next day. When Luz woke up the next morning without making a sound.


End file.
